Sanz: I’d rather measure my words than be part of the noise

Convinced by ranting criticisms and controversies that sometimes it’s better to keep quiet than talk too much, Alejandro Sanz has for some time chosen silence, waiting for the day that harmony returns and all opinions are listened to equally.

“I try to measure my words, because in the end I don’t want to be part of the noise. I prefer to be part of the silence, because much more can be created when it’s quiet than when it’s noisy,” the Spanish singersongwriter told Efe in a telephone interview.

At a time when “anything can be a distraction” and what you say is taken out of context and endlessly echoed, Sanz, with more than 23 million discs sold over his three decades in music, has realized that the noise that has taken over these days “is worth nothing” except to give you a headache.

“As long as we’re unable to find that harmony in which all notes can be played and be heard, we’ll never understand each other,” he said.

There were times, the artist recalled, when he was always “sounding off about a lot of things, and spouting a lot of opinions.”

Those were the days of holding forth about the Cuban dictatorship and slamming the now deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to such a degree that the artist was barred from the South American country.

“But when I saw that all I was doing was being part of the noise I wanted no part of, and when I immersed myself in what is really mine, which is making music, that’s when I’ve felt the happiest,” he said.